Asphalt-surfaced roadways are built to facilitate vehicular travel. Depending upon usage density, base conditions, temperature variation, moisture levels, and/or physical age, the surfaces of the roadways eventually become misshapen and unable to support wheel loads. In order to rehabilitate the roadways for continued vehicular use, spent asphalt is removed in preparation for resurfacing.
Cold planers, sometimes also called road mills or scarifiers, are used to break up and remove layers of an asphalt roadway. A cold planer typically includes a frame propelled by tracked or wheeled drive units. The frame supports an engine, an operator's station, a milling drum, and conveyors. The milling drum, fitted with cutting tools, is rotated through a suitable interface with the engine to break up the surface of the roadway. The broken up roadway material is deposited by the milling drum onto the conveyors, which transfer the broken up material into haul trucks for removal from the worksite. As haul trucks are filled, they are replaced with empty haul trucks. The filled trucks transport the broken up material to a different location to be reused as aggregate in new asphalt or otherwise recycled. This transport process repeats until the milling process is finished.
Operators may wish to fill each truck to an optimum capacity before replacing it with an empty truck, while also ensuring that the filling and truck replacement processes are efficient and continuous. The filling process typically relies on constant communication between operators of the cold planer and the truck to ensure that the truck is properly aligned with the conveyor of the cold planer in order to avoid spillage of material and ensure that the material is evenly distributed within the truck. The truck replacement process also relies on communication between the cold planer and truck operators to convey when the current truck is full and when the next truck will arrive. Operators typically use hand signals and horns to convey information, such as when to speed up, slow down, stop, and when the truck is full. However, these methods of communication can be imprecise, misinterpreted, and unable to convey other important and more complex information.
One attempt to control the loading of milled material into a transport vehicle is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2013/0080000 A1 of Von der Lippe et al. that published on Mar. 28, 2013 (“the '000 publication”). In particular, the '000 publication discloses a system for determining a fill level of the transport vehicle, determining the relative positioning of a milling machine and the transport vehicle, and signaling instructions to the operator of the transport vehicle to maintain proper positioning of the vehicle relative to the milling machine. The system includes a camera that detects material loading within the transport vehicle and the distance between the transport vehicle and the milling machine. A controller uses data from the camera to generate signals for instructing the operator of the transport vehicle to control the vehicle's speed with respect to the milling machine. When the transport vehicle is full, the controller generates a signal instructing the operator to depart from the milling machine. Signals are communicated to the operator of the transport vehicle via a visual display and an acoustic device.
While the system of the '000 publication may allow for some control of the loading process, it may not be optimum. In particular, the system of the '000 publication may only convey speed and departure instructions to the operator of the transport vehicle, and it may not communicate other important information between the milling machine and transport vehicles.
The control system of the present disclosure solves one or more of the problems set forth above and/or other problems in the art.